The fish may not have been biting, but a pod of curious orcas have turned one Upper Hutt man's fishing trip into one he'll never forget.
Gareth Pritchard was with friends Garry and Glen Toms near Mana Island, south of Kapiti Island, when they had the incredibly close encounter on Saturday - and they caught it all on video.
Only moments after Mr Pritchard whipped out his phone to film, one orca gets a little too close for comfort, swimming underneath his boat and shoving it.
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The rest of the pod continue to cruise around the fishers, completely unaware of their starstruck audience.
"Look at the size of that monster!" Mr Pritchard can be heard saying in the video.
He told Newshub he was stunned by the once-in-a-lifetime encounter.
"We were all bloody excited when it happened, but we didn't expect it to come up and push the boat - twice!" Mr Pritchard said.
"I was a bit shocked, I fell over. I was stunned... He gave it quite a shove. It was an experience that doesn't happen to people very often."
The group's excitement is obvious in the video, as they all laugh and try to process what just happened.
"The fish are gone now, I'll tell you that much," one friend can be heard pointing out as the orcas meander away again.
"We [also] laughed at the point my friend's boat is named 'Finn Fish' and didn't want to rename it 'Flipped Fish'!" Mr Pritchard said.
The new friends were only passing through, hanging around for about a minute-and-a-half before moving on.
But it's turned a lacklustre fishing trip into a memory of a lifetime.
Newshub.
